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So, Destiny 2’s Darkness Is Finally Coming, What’s That Going To Look Like?

Paul Tassi

If it wasn’t obvious by the giant fleet of ships currently being tracked inside our solar system, we are not going to be waiting another year for Destiny 2’s Pyramids to get here, the physical manifestation of the Darkness, a concept that has been teased since vanilla Destiny 1.

This is going to be what the fall expansion is about. I am expecting something meaty in size, more akin to Forsaken and Taken King than Shadowkeep and Rise of Iron, and you have probably all heard my theory that a lot of this is going to be cut Destiny 3 content that was supposed to launch under Activision before the split. Hence why the Darkness is arriving in an expansion rather than a full sequel.

So, what exactly is coming?

I am going to do a round up of the current rumors and speculation and see where I land with all of it.

A new enemy race – Yes, I believe this one. I think that Destiny 2 will finally get a new race this fall, different than the Scorn (modified Fallen) or Taken (modified everything) for the first time. It’s been six years, it’s time.

The “Veil” – One persistent rumor that has spanned years has been that they are called the Veil. I mean, they have to be named something, and we’re not going to keep calling them The Darkness. After all this time I still don’t know whether or not the Veil name has any basis in reality, and yet it sounds good enough to the community that they have always been calling them that.

What they look like – You’ll notice that I am featuring some sick new art from Gammatrap that shows what they believe the Veil will look like, based mainly on the statue we saw inside the Pyramid and also, you know, the looming threat of death. It’s terrifying. The basis for the Veil could indeed be from concept art we saw years and years ago showing a more ghostly version of enemy built from smoke and wisps. We sort of have a bit of that with the Scorn (their smoky arrival and teleportation), but I would think more like the dead Guardian ghost enemies on the moon.

What they’re called – You will notice that enemy races in Destiny all have some sort of “theme” attached to them. Roman for Cabal (Legionnaires, Gladiators), Greek for Vex (Minotaurs, Cylops), Arthurian for Hive (Knights, Wizards), Fallen uhh…not as much. A few of the recent 4chan rumors have the new race being “chess themed” with Bishops and Knights and Rooks being the names. Again, like the Veil name, it sounds plausible, and yet I have no reason to believe the source of these leaks as of yet, so who knows. I’d believe the Veil before I believed the chess stuff, but we’ll see.

Darkness Subclasses – I have heard both yes and no on these from a variety of questionable leaks. I would be a little surprised if this fall brought with it both a new race and an entirely new subclass. In the past, the rumors have been a poison-based subclass or an ice-based subclass, both of which could fit with the themes of this race, but I would guess further modifications to existing subclasses. And “Darkness subclasses” raises the following question:

Choosing a side – This is has been a long-running rumor, that Luke Smith, in his quest to make Destiny even more like WoW, will eventually pose a choice to players where they have to choose between Darkness and Light, similar to the Alliance/Horde split. There is some basis for this in the game, as we are always being told that we can use Darkness, not just fear it, and it seems at least theoretically possible that some amount of Guardians could end up taken by the “dark side.” Though if this is in the cards, I would be surprised if it happened this expansion, and that could be something down the road. I still have my doubts it will ever actually come to fruition at all.

Destroying a Planet – This is a more immediate rumor, that as soon as this next season, the Pyramids might get close enough where they might just start blowing up planets/moons/zones. Most at risk is Titan, the moon of Saturn which the Pyramids should reach by the end of this season. This has both in-game lore aspects (demonstrating the awesome power of the Pyramids) and out-of-game ramifications, like freeing up space by deleting Titan or Nessus or Mercury or whatever in order to debut new areas, as Destiny worries about getting too big. I think if this is going to happen, it wouldn’t be until fall, but I could be wrong, and it’s possible Bungie is just saving space in other ways.

Europa - One consistent rumor is that Europa, a long-rumored, potentially cut past zone, will be the main area of the expansion. I believe this, namely because A) we have never had a true ice zone and B) Europa is on the bunker map, just blacked out and unlit and C) there’s a leaked cutscene that lasts five seconds that shows the Pyramids approaching Jupiter, where Europa is a moon. So yeah, I think this is the first front of the new war.

From what I can tell, these are all the major rumors about the Darkness so far. I am only convinced of one thing for sure, that they will be showing up this fall in the expansion. What they’re called, what they look like and what they destroy is more up in the air at the moment. But I can’t wait to see what happens.

